ISE Taps Cornish for CTO

Cornish has been with the exchange since its birth in 1999. (The ISE launched in May 2000.) His most recent title was that of technology strategy and operations officer.

Cornish tells WatersTechnology that he was focused on infrastructure engineering and information security, as well as the company's operations; in his new role he will focus "mainly on IT strategy, an area where we've been spending a great deal of time on in the past year trying to focus on business value."

In 2013, the ISE will continue to automate certain internal processes so as to be able to cut down the time it takes to bring new products to market. Cornish says that he wants to move the company to a 10-week release cycle for new functionality. 

"In addition, we're moving away from the pure cost-management that we've had over the past few years, and try to make that more of a BAU [Business As Usual] function so that we can begin to focus on profitability again," he says. "So we will look at new offerings that will provide value to our members and our customers."

"Rob's leadership and guidance have played a key role in the development of our technology strategy," noted Gary Katz, president and CEO of the ISE, in a statement. "This CTO appointment recognizes that, as well as his significant accomplishments and contributions to ISE's technology innovation."

Cornish fills a position that has been vacant since Larry Campbell left in April 2011. The reason for the delay, Cornish says, is that it took time to put the ISE's new IT strategy in place.

"I was acting in the role of taking over the IT strategy, and it was really something where we needed to get it to the point where we felt the IT strategy was adding value to the business and that we had put the new strategy process fully in place," Cornish says.